They get along well and have known each other for years: Laura Meyer (40), head of the Hotelplan Group, and Pascal Grieder (43), head of Salt. In their private lives, they have the hay on the same stage, but their top manager friends now also want to give it a try on business. And with double branches: half telecom shop, half travel agency.
The Migros travel subsidiary provides its branch network for this purpose. The telecom provider moves in as a subtenant at Hotelplan. “The contracts for the first two double branches are signed and sealed,” Hotelplan confirms information from Blick. The first opens after renovation on May 20th in Olten SO, the other on June 10th in Stans NW.
Mutual traffic
The cooperation between companies from outside the industry is astonishing: Selling mobile phone subscriptions and telecom contracts is not necessarily the same thing as selling travel and advice on complicated bookings. For the time being, the annoying roaming costs for stays abroad are probably the only thing that connects customers of the two companies with one another at first glance.
Initially, Hotelplan and Salt employees work side by side, each on their own territory in the two branches. “We bring each other traffic and can of course continue to operate a location at lower costs,” says Hotelplan Group boss Meyer zu Blick.
Mobile phone subscription for Dubai
Synergies could look like this in the future: A couple books three weeks in Dubai. Because a special mobile phone subscription may then be required, the travel saleswoman points out offers that the Salt salesperson at the desk next to her knows better about. “Such partnerships give Salt access to top locations, which brings us closer to our customers and enables us to serve them even better,” says a Salt spokeswoman. The concept does not lead to the dismantling of sales outlets.
The advantage for Hotelplan is obvious. Some branches are oversized for today’s needs. Hardly anyone needs large catalog walls in the digital age. In addition, the head of the Migros subsidiary has to turn to the savings screws because the Corona crisis has stalled travel tourism and the customers are missing.
“I do not want to rule out that we still have to close one or the other branch,” said Meyer in an interview with Blick in mid-April.
Business model with a future
Are double branches with external partner companies the recipe for a crisis? Meyer does not want to say anything about further plans with a total of 81 Swiss Hotelplan branches. “But we are convinced that this business model has a future and are not ruling out further double branches, perhaps with other partners,” says the Hotelplan boss. The Salt spokeswoman adds: “If the cooperation is successful, we can certainly imagine running further shop-in-shops together with Hotelplan.”
Another partner is obvious with Hotelplan: owner Migros. Perhaps there will soon be take-away rolls and coffee from Migros gastronomy for those who love to travel?